Gargoyles Blog

There was a recent article in Variety regarding the Disney film about gargoyles that’s in development. Disney has chosen new writers for the project, David Elliot and Paul Lovett. Elliot and Lovett have several writing credits under their belt, but the one that many are sure to make special note of is their work on G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

When reading news about this untitled film project the words “gargoyles” and “Disney” are profusely exercised. Now we have a pair of writers who took an animated series and adapted it into a live-action film associated with this Disney project about gargoyles. It should therefore not be unexpected that people believe this new Disney film will be a live-action adaptation of the animated series Gargoyles. The problem is this film has absolutely nothing to do with the animated series. The Variety article explicitly states this, but in a world of messages limited to 160 characters that particular detail gets left out and the news of a Gargoyles live-action film spreads. This confusion bothers me.

Gargoyles Abridged is a series of videos on YouTube by Evil Chicken that provide a short-hand form of each episode lasting typically under eight minutes. The videos use original footage from the show, but provide new dialogue and a tiny bit of editing to put a new slant on things. It’s incredibly hilarious and refreshing and worth a few minutes out of your day to watch it.

Gargoyles Abridged #1

Currently there are seven episodes and there will probably be many more to come. There’s no single playlist that I can link you to at this time so I’d suggest heading over to Evil Chicken’s uploaded videos and search for Gargoyles to find them all. At the time of writing there are seven, here are links to each one:

This next video has new material from the panel where Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis talk about voice acting.

I totally get Marina Sirtis’ comment on the impact grunts. The radio plays we’ve had at past Gatherings have usually included those noises in the script which the actors would have to perform.

“The Last” is an episode of Team Atlantis that was never completed due to the series being canceled halfway through production, but the voice acting for the episode was recorded and it included Marina Sirtis in the role of a female “Gorlois” (a thinly-veiled incarnation of Demona).

The voice track and some partial storyboards from that episode were auctioned off at the 2003 Gathering. Vashkoda, with the help of fellow fans, worked to animate the entire episode including background music and sound effects. At each Gathering since fans were shown the episode with new animation and sound being added each year. It appeared to be complete at the last Gathering in 2009. However it’s not available for viewing online.

But in the beginning it was just the voice track with no background music or sound effects. This meant there were large chunks of just voice actors (including Marina Sirtis) making impact and grunting noises. With the visual aid of the animation and added sound effects and background music you don’t really notice them, but when it’s just the voice track they become very noticeable and, without context, are extremely hilarious.

Saturday I was up before 10am and headed down to the registration desk and hung out for a bit. At 10 I decided to catch the Asian Ball-Jointed Dall panel run by Andrea Zucconi. I’d seen pictures of her dolls and figured I’d check them out in person. The big thing about these dolls is just how customizable they are. Not only are there different parts to swap out, but you can even reshape parts and paint them to look any way you want. Andrea does this for a living and she showed some of her work; it was pretty impressive. Then the cost of these things came up and my jaw hit the floor when prices starting at $250 (for a “cheap” doll) and going very high up ($1000) were thrown out. Tony, Andrea’s husband, was sitting next to me and I offered him my sympathies.

After the doll panel I got in line to get Marina Sirtis’ autograph. $20 a pop, which is a bit awkward, but when the hell am I ever going to meet her again? I got two, one for myself and one for a friend. I had no clue what to say to her. I’m sure she’s heard everything a thousand million times before, so I just thanked her for coming out and taking part in the con.

I helped out at the registration desk for a bit so Patrick could go eat and catch bits of the Gargoyles voice acting panel. Sarah showed up and took over as she knew what she was doing. I just knew how to smile and say “let me go find someone on staff”. A few con guests arrived while I was at the table, including Michael Reaves. I didn’t expect to see him at the con and was excited to see him. He needed a con badge made up and the label printer decided his name was too long. Patrick arrived just in time to push the one button needed to shrink the font size down a notch and make the name fit.

I caught bits of the Gargoyles voice acting panel, which included Marina Sirtis and Keith David. It was a bit surreal to see Demona and Goliath sitting next to each other. That panel broke and was immediately followed by the Spectacular Spider-Man voice acting panel. I was able to catch most of this panel. The room was too narrow to fit all the cast and wrapped around on the sides a bit. We had pretty much the entire cast there at the panel. I asked Vanessa Marshall (voice of Mary Jane Watson) to say “Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot” several dozen times. At least that’s what happened in my head. Her voice is pure sex. It’s like Laura San Giacomo’s (Fox) voice. Put the two of them in a scene together and forget about it. A million pants will need to be changed.

The whole Spidey cast were very, very cool. Very friendly, willing to share stories and talk about the business. They seemed to be happy and having fun with the whole thing.

After the panel, and in the same room, was the radio play rehearsal. Out of 40 or so fans who auditioned, only 13 slots were open and I was fortunate enough to get one. All the pros were there and given their respective on-screen characters to voice. I was cast in the role of Matt Bluestone. The radio play was an original script — a cross-over between Gargoyles and Spectacular Spider-Man. Greg wrote the thing in three days with very little rest (I don’t think you can call it “sleep”) during that time. He said he was a bit nervous about the script, but it was great. Tying the two shows together actually seemed to go pretty smoothly. And thank you Greg for finding a way to get Obsidiana into the script. I could never get tired listening to Elisa Gabrielli do Obsidiana.

After a quick read through it was time to do the show in front of an audience.

To be able to say I acted alongside the likes of Marina Sirtis, Keith David, Phil LaMarr and so on is crazy. How does that happen? It was very cool. Listening to Marina Sirtis voice Demona was surreal. It didn’t take her long to get back into form and *poof* there’s Demona. And she’s twice as scary in person. (That’s not a knock on Marina, it’s a compliment to her voice acting.) Darran Norris doing J. Jonah Jameson (LOUDLY) was spine tingling. The whole time I keep saying to myself “holy crap! it’s J Jonah Jameson! right there! RIGHT THERE!! HAH!”. It took everything to keep myself from giggling like an idiot when I had a scene with Marina Sirtis (as Margot).

The radio play went well. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, including the cast both pros and fans alike. I’m told Marina Sirtis expressed that she had a lot of fun and was disappointed this would be the last Gathering.

After the radio play I went to the hotel bar with a few people (Susan, Joe, Rebekah, and a couple others I’m totally blanking on like an idiot) and had some beer. I intended to have real food as well but the Blue Mug panel was fast approaching and all I had for dinner that evening was a few Sam Adams. Which may have something to do with my behavior at the Blue Mug.

Early in the panel I was asked about getting on the interwebs and hooking into the projector that was in the room. Nothing had been set up and the panel had already started. No worries. I asked Scott, who was at the panel, if he could start setting things up while I went to my room and grabbed my netbook. When I came back it was a simple matter of plugging the projector’s VGA cable into the netbook and setting up the wireless connection on my machine. All went well and before long we had the Blue Mug Productions web site up and running. Just in time as BMP director Edmund Tsabard walked into the panel to talk all things blue. I walked through the site while Edmund talked about what it was all about.

It was pretty convenient, that tiny netbook. I could cradle it in one arm and play it like an instrument with my free hand. It didn’t take long to get into a groove. At some point Edmund left, but I was a bit busy with the pictures. Just as I was really hitting my stride showcasing the goods Greg Weisman popped back in. Oops.

The panel was light. A bit blue here and there, but nothing terribly raunchy. I just sat back and watched Nikki and Mara draw naughty bits.

After the panel was over Scott informed me of a secret plan to connect Rock Band up to the projector and sound system in the room and rock out with insane bass (until the hotel staff kicked them out an hour later), but I was wrecked. I headed up to the 24th floor with Tony to hang out for a bit with Greg, Jen, Tony, Mara before crashing.

This video shows you what went up for auction at this year’s Gathering of the Gargoyles. Towards the end of the clip you’ll hear someone telling me a story about how Marina Sirtis had arrived earlier in the day and went to check in at the registration desk. When she approached the lady behind the desked asked for her name.

I bid on several items just after filming this, but the “Winged Warrior Shave Set” shown 24 seconds into the clip is the only item I took home with me.

Funny story about that.

I picked up the set Monday morning an hour before I had to leave the hotel. I had already packed up and locked my checked bag with a zip-tie. Rather than bother with cutting the tie and having to attach a new one I just put the shaving set into my carry-on bag.

As I was going through the security checkpoint at the airport my bag was grabbed and tagged for manual inspection. Well the TSA officer opened it up and pulled out the shaving set. It was about 3 milliseconds after I saw her pull it out of the bag that I realized that it contained two items (cologne and shaving cream) which need to be put into a separate, clear plastic bag when you go through the checkpoint. Furthermore, I wasn’t sure if either of those items was over the 3 ounce limit.

Turns out the shaving cream was.

I had given the shaving set up at that point. It was destined to be trashed. I knew it. The TSA officer suggested I go back and check my carry-on bag so that I could get through with it. I explained to her my carry-on had all my electronics and other expensive items in it and that I’d lost a checked bag once before and didn’t want to risk losing my stuff again.

I don’t know if it was the defeated and sad expression on my face or the willingness to admit I’d screwed up or that perhaps she had an image in her head of a child (possibly a son or nephew of mine) being disappointed to learn the airport took his toy away, but she took pity on me. She said she’d check it for explosives and if the “Winged Warrior Shaving Set” didn’t contain explosives I’d get to keep it.

So she opened it up, spread a bit of foam (which still foamed after 15 years!) over a small piece of paper and dropped a few drops of some clear liquid from a very small glass bottle onto the foam. It didn’t turn blue. Or pink. Or whatever color is the bad color.

Declared non-explosive I packed up the “Winged Warrior Shaving Set” and went on my way.

Both going to L.A. and coming home from L.A. my checked bag was searched by the TSA. The first time this has ever happened to me. It annoyed me to no end, although the idea of a TSA agent having to rifle through my rank and worn days old dirty clothes does make me feel I got one back.

But the TSA agent lady at Burbank who let me keep my Gargoyles shaving set made me feel that they’re not all mindless robots out to ruin our vacation.

This is a video I took while the cast for the radio play at this year’s Gathering of the Gargoyles radio play assembled and received scripts prior to rehearsal.

We had 16 professional voice actors in the radio play with another 12 or so fans filling out the cast.

The script is an original piece written by Greg Weisman in which the Gargoyles and Spectacular Spider-Man universes cross-over. Greg says he wrote it over the course of three days with very little sleep just before the convention. Everyone agreed it was a success.

Marina Sirtis remarked afterwards that she enjoyed it and was disappointed this would be the last con.

This brings together all six issues together; that includes a few issues which were left unpublished in single comic format!

Bad Guys is based on a Gargoyles spin-off that Greg Weisman has planned out back while still working on the TV series. An animatic (a rough animation) was even produced to help pitch the show to Disney. Unfortunately the show was killed before they could finish the animatic. However, Greg paid out of his own pocket to complete the animatic and now fans who go to the Gathering will get to see it themselves. A very cool piece of Gargoyles history that you can only see at the con.

I wanted to highlight a piece of the community that I think is fun and anyone can get involved with.

Gargoyles Watch is a LiveJournal community where members watch a given episode of Gargoyles and then discuss the episode. It’s a lot like the old Gargoyles mailing list days where a new episode would premier and we’d start firing e-mails through the mailing list talking about the episode we all just watched and try to dissect any hidden meaning or implications for future story developments.

What makes Gargoyles Watch different from those old mailing list days is we already know how things turn out. We have the benefit of knowing what’s to come of the characters and the story and get to see the seeds of future story arcs being planted along the way. It gives a new appreciation to the kind of meticulous planning that went into the show back in those days at Disney.

Anyone can get involved in Gargoyles Watch. A basic LiveJournal account is free for anyone with an e-mail address. Even if you don’t want to create an account you can still follow along, read the discussion, and enjoy the show all over again.

The long awaited second half of the Gargoyles: Clan Building Comic is now available for purchase through slgcomic.com. This volume includes issues 9 through 12 which have never before been published. These unpublished issues include the first peek at the Timedancer story line where Brooklyn gets caught up with the Phoenix Gate. This should include a peek at Brooklyn’s mate, Katana. There has been literally over a decade of speculation about here and for the first time we’ll finally get to meet her.

The book should also be hitting the streets today (Tuesday, Aug 11) so call around your local comic shops and see if they’ve got a copy in stock. If not, they can always order you one (which isn’t a bad idea as it brings it to the attention of the shop owner) or you can always order one online.

The Sculptures

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